Chef Jason Rodwell will bring his love of regional French cuisine to Albert St Food & Wine with an extravagant hunter-themed Bastille Day feast.

The French-inspired dinner will take place on Sunday 13 July – the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille that sparked the French Revolution – from 12.30pm at a cost of $75 per person.

Inspired by his travels through regional France, Rodwell will present guests with a magnificent red wine-marinated boar, the perfect reward for a hunter after a tough day trawling French forests.

The beast – complete with apple in its mouth – will be immersed in Côtes du Rhône wine, juniper berries and bay leaves for three days prior to the event. The boar will be served with handmade buckwheat crozets, a type of pasta that is a specialty of the Savoie region, and a sauce made from Cacao Barry single origin chocolate.

During his stint in France, Rodwell worked as a chef at Michelin-starred restaurant Auberge du Bon Laboureur in the Loire Valley and Chalet Le Torrent in the Savoie. While living in France, Rodwell developed his passion for rural earthy flavours and spent many enjoyable hours sampling village produce and exploring the wine regions.

Before the mouth-watering boar is served on Bastille Day, Rodwell will showcase his culinary prowess with a selection of hors d’oeuvres and starters, including hare and foie gras royale, terrine de chasseur and raclette cheese from Australia.

To conclude the soirée L'Artisan's The Authentic cheese washed in-house with Chablis will be served along with a dessert of poached pears and hazelnuts, with a warm waffle and salted caramel ice cream.

Accompanied by matching Champagne and other French wines at an additional cost, Albert St Food & Wine’s Bastille Day rendezvous will be sure to ignite the Francophile in us all.

Time Out celebrates Sydney and Melbourne’s best restaurants at annual Food Awards

The annual Time Out Food Awards are back with a bang in 2014, returning to Melbourne on Monday 18 August and Sydney on Monday 25 August to celebrate each city’s hottest restaurants. The Awards, which are now in their sixth year in Sydney in and second year in Melbourne, recognise the best food offerings in each city, from tiny cafes to fine dining restaurants, fresh new talent and tasty cheap eats.

The cream of Sydney and Melbourne’s dining scene will be attending, hoping to win one of just ten awards including Best Bang For Buck, Best New Restaurant, Best Café and Restaurant of the Year. Each city’s rising stars will also be recognised with the Hot Talent award, and for the first time ever the industry’s driving forces will be celebrated with the inaugural Chef of the Year Award.

Myffy Rigby, Time Out Australia’s chief food and drink critic, explains: “Time Out is all about celebrating the best and brightest. Our sole agenda is to showcase how truly great our respective cities can be.”

Time Out readers can have their say with the People’s Choice Awards, and be in with a chance of winning a double pass to this year’s events by registering their favourite venue via the website.

The awards are open to all Time Out readers and food lovers in each city, giving them the rare chance to mingle with their favourite chefs and restaurateurs. Tickets are just $50 (plus booking fee) including drinks, canapés and good times!

All award nominees will be announced in Sydney on Monday 28 Julyand award locations will be announced shortly.

Eight-year-old Tom Soutar ate no fruit or vegetables for four and a half years thanks to an eating disorder which almost robbed him of his childhood.

His hair fell out in clumps, his skin was translucent, and he was hospitalised due to a collapsed bowel, leaving no question of going to gymnastics or swimming practice.

“As a young child he was very sick, every meal was a fight. Thanks to the Gutsy Challenge, that has all changed,” said Tom’s mother, Ms Jessica Soutar.

Tom saw a community service announcement promoting the Gutsy Challenge, a national healthy eating program, which transformed his life. The Gutsy Challenge, now in its 5th year, encourages children to eat two fruit and four vegetables a day for one week whilst raising money for Gastro-Intestinal (GI) cancer research.

“I saw a girl using carrot sticks as teeth, a boy boxing with broccoli and another wearing a watermelon helmet. I wanted to be a part of the Gutsy Challenge and raise money for cancer!” Tom exclaimed.

As children fundraise they can win great prizes including Shimano bike computers, iCute portable speakers, activity trackers, action cameras and more.

“I am very pleased with how the Gutsy Challenge has changed Tom’s life. He now takes an apple to school and has his own drawer in the fridge with his fruit and veg, and happily eats them,” said Ms Soutar.

“The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that one in four Australian children are either overweight or obese. The Gutsy Challenge is a practical way to reduce this statistic and decrease the risk of developing of gastro-intestinal cancers later in life,” said Mr Russell Conley, Executive Officer,GI Cancer Institute.

“Gastro-intestinal cancers are cancers of the bowel, pancreas, stomach, oesophagus, liver and gallbladder. GI cancer kills 26 Australians every day and three people are diagnosed with it every hour,” he added.

All funds raised support research to find better ways to treat gastro-intestinal (GI) cancer.

Tom and his best friend are doing the Gutsy Challenge again this year and are planning to throw a Gutsy Party to help change their friends’ eating habits.

#mealforameal is a new campaign officially launching on Monday 14 July, which sees food photos turned into real meals for people in need. The campaign is called #mealforameal and is being launched by Virgin Mobile, alongside food rescue service OzHarvest.

What is Virgin Mobile's #mealforameal Campaign?

Mobile phones have become as ubiquitous in the food industry as cutlery. While it was once considered rude to have your phone at the table, now it's normal to see smartphones taking pride of place amongst the plates of food or in the hands of diners as they snap their meals and post them on Instagram!

But while we're sharing meals on Instagram, we're not really sharing them where they are needed. $8 billion worth of food (4 million tonnes!) is thrown away every year in Australia, while more than 2 million Australians rely on food relief for their meals. It seems like such a waste!

So Virgin Mobile are on a mission to make it better with the #mealforameal initiative.

GET ON BOARD!

Every time someone snaps a photo of their food, posts it to social media with the hashtag #mealforameal, Virgin Mobile will donate to OzHarvest so they can put a real meal on the table for someone in need. Through this world-first initiative, Virgin Mobile aims to donate more than 400,000 meals to Australians who need it.